erasing clouds
 

L’Altra, Telepathic

review by dave heaton

L’Altra’s fourth album is bookended by a brief instrumentals called “Dark Corners” that use horns to project the feeling of late-night drama, perhaps in the alleyways of a crumbling European city. They also have the feeling of a curtain opening and closing on a melodrama. The broody, melodic, downcast songs in between seem to tell stories of love and desperation, and do so with a lot of class: stylish anxiety with a heavy dose of romance.

Whether it’s Joseph Desler Costa’s bruised, suntanned voice or Linday Anderson’s prettier, less weather-sounding one, their voices together project a mixture of hope and hard luck. With a half-different lineup and more of a song focus, this is a much different band than when they started in 1999, but with a similar attention to the overall atmosphere of their songs. In this case, the songs are colored in darkness but mostly stick in an ambient dream-pop-like daze, whether they’re singing about a “Black Wind” or telling us that “Winter Loves Summer Sun”.

{”Winter Loves Summer Sun” mp3 (zip)}

{www.acuareladiscos.com}


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